Artist Statement
“In the early days, when I was young I was taught to focus on the
image, repeating its exactness as closely as possible. The realistic likeness
with drawn perspective and vanishing points became the test of my work.
However as time passed my focus changed. I now feel the artist’s
real contribution is to distil the essence of the image, and eliminate
the extraneous, to challenge the reader to focus on his distilled view.
The painter must leave the literal inclusion of all detail to the photographer.
For the artist to make any contribution it lies in his ability to decide
what to include and what to leave out. It is this ability to select correctly
that enables the viewer to focus on what the artists feels is important
to see, emphasizing those bits and pieces and compressing them into a
composition. That is what my work is all about. It is that ability, to
correctly select and delete that enables the reader to experience the
emotional reality of the artist’s sight. This is the artists challenge
and gift, his ability to see, select and manipulate color for emphasis
to heighten the emotion and to refocus on the essence of reality. It is
not in his ability to express reality as an end in itself.
For that we have the camera, the “Definitive Inclusive," but
that’s a different art form. More simply put, this selection process
defines art from photography, as is the difference between prose and poetry.”
Biography
As a young artist I lived and worked in Texas. I was a member of The Men of Art Guild, apprenticed to Ortho Glass working with Cecil Casebier (Stained Glass and Mosaic Design) and was a guest visiting instructor, for abstract expressionism, at The University of Texas in Austin. I exhibited extensively throughout the west and south west and was offered, thru Cecil Casebier, the curatorship of the Whitte Museum in San Antonio (at that time a small affair), but for personal reasons I could not accept and moved back to New York. While in Texas I won the Texas annual and the DD Feldman Invitational Exhibition and was asked to submit work to the Whitney Museum of American Art for their “Painting USA” show held each year to highlight their selections of new, up and coming American Artists.
After returning to New York I worked and painted between New York, Locust Valley and Bridgehampton, Long Island eventually coming to a somewhat “in between” painting philosophy, which I refer to as “EXPRESSIONISTIC IMPRESSIONISM” a kind of Wolf Kahn. The forms are sometime abstracted and or distorted, but generally representational or symbolically so. However, not always in the colors you might expect.
For the past 12 years I have lived, taught some, and worked in rural Connecticut.
To view more of Bruce’s work please visit: http://www.etsy.com/shop/digitaloriginals
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